Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!purdue!decwrl!spar!malcolm
From: malcolm@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM (Malcolm Slaney)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Curb feelers (was: Cray architecture)
Message-ID: <359@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM>
Date: 27 Apr 88 22:31:32 GMT
References: <7762@alice.UUCP> <418@ole.UUCP> <3216@phri.UUCP> <1574@osiris.UUCP> <505@xios.XIOS.UUCP> <4777@cup.portal.com> <9357@weitek.UUCP> <2087@gumby.mips.COM>
Reply-To: malcolm@spar.slb.com (Malcolm Slaney)
Distribution: na
Organization: SPAR - Schlumberger Palo Alto Research
Lines: 21
Summary: CPU Meters

In article <2087@gumby.mips.COM> earl@mips.COM (Earl Killian) writes:
> My favorite cpu meter was on the MIT AI Lab PDP-10 in the mid 70's.
> AI had about 20 bitmap screens connected to it, and could memory map
> the frame buffers.  Thus your display had a 36-pixel bar in the corner 
> that flashed on and off, showing when
> you were getting cpu cycles.  

Oh, that's where Symbolics got the idea!!!  Symbolics machines (and I
believe TI LispM's) do the same thing even today.  For my money I still
prefer the SunView approach.  I like a pointer that quickly shows
the average load.  It is just too hard to quantify the load with load
bars.  (I've also used the bar graph (load average vs. time) approach 
but I don't think it is as responsive.)

On the other hand the LispM's also show bars for Garbage Collection and
paging time so it is easier to judge how much time your process is not
getting because of system overhead.

								Malcolm
P.S.  We could also talk about the (switching) power supply on my Sun
that whines when the CPU gets busy.....